BUT SERIOUSLY: Prognostications for a holiday Monday

North York Mirror

This just in from Environment Toronto: the exclusive forecast for Family Day.

Mom will be mostly sunny throughout the morning and afternoon despite three days of intense cooking activity leading up to the annual fest and the gloomy extended outlook of massive post-party clean-up on the horizon.

Dad will be a sweltering, hot air mass prone to regular outbursts of, “Honey, where did you put my socks?” “Sweetie, do you know where my shirt is?” “Darling, where the heck are my pants?”

And Grandma and Grandpa will be subject to hazy, intermittent visibility on the laptop or tablet live from Miami due to the di rigueur interruptions on Skype.

Daughter Melissa will be a whirlwind on Facebook.

Sister Stacie will be texting up a storm.

Brothers Tyler and Cameron will be in a dense fog when asked to remove their hockey bags from the front lobby and their skates and sticks lying at the foot of the stairs.

And there will be a strong advisory of heavy gusts coming from a panting Rover who will also be drooling over everybody’s feet as he circulates around the room like a cyclone in the desperate search for crumbs from fallen Rice Krispies Squares.

A slight disturbance emanating from both the north and the south is expected during the early afternoon as next-door neighbours Donna and Janet race over to borrow some butter or sugar for their family get-togethers.

And a severe warning will be in effect following immediately when their hubbies, Bert and Max, respectively, come blustering in right behind in a mad dash to hijack the sports section from the daily newspaper and then see if they can outmaneuver Rover for some of those yummy crumbs.

Meanwhile, as usual, the relative – ahem – humility index will be zero. Looking at that radar screen we see a very icy reception for Aunt Wilma from Aunt Louise – and vice versa. No chances of a thaw between them any time soon.

And a volcano, which has been rumbling beneath the surface since the early ’90s whenever cousins Victor and Arnold appear in the same room, will finally erupt.

There will be a warm front for those lucky enough to be seated next to the fireplace.

There will be a cold front for those unlucky enough to be in the basement next to the broken furnace.

And there will be a stationary front directly across from the big-screen TV during the airing of The Young and the Restless.

There will be constant flurry to the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms to check out the fancy party soaps.

And finally, a depression will inevitably set in at the end of the evening after all the quadruple chocolate fudge swirl supreme explosion ice cream has been inhaled and all that is left on the dessert tray is the diet, low-fat, skim, ultra-lite, plain soy yogurt left over from last Family Day.

Film – and more importantly, yet even more texting from Stacie – at 11.